Swiss glaciers record 'catastrophic' ice loss

Switzerland's glaciers have lost a further 4% of their volume this year - the second biggest loss ever - after last year's record melt of 6%.

The statistics come in the annual report of the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (Glamos), whose team of researchers have been monitoring 176 of Switzerland's 1,400 glaciers for years.

They warn it may now be too late to save many of the alpine ice fields, even if climate targets are met.

"It's terrible," said the Glamos chief.

In just two years, Switzerland's glaciers have lost 10% of their total volume - as much as they lost in the three decades between 1960 and 1990.

Glaciologists measuring the ice take no comfort in the fact that this year's melt is slightly smaller than last year's record.

"It was still the second most negative year since measurements started," Matthias Huss, the head of Glamos, told the BBC. "It's terrible to see that this extreme of last year is just repeating."

The researchers say the loss is due to consecutive very warm summers, and last winter's very low snowfall. If these weather patterns continue, they say, the thaw will only accelerate.

Some of Switzerland's smaller glaciers have already disappeared.

This year the researchers stopped monitoring the St Annafirn glacier because there was no ice left worth measuring.

Others are shrinking so fast it is unlikely they can be saved, even if global temperatures are kept within the Paris target of a 1.5C rise.

Without a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gases linked to global warming, glacier experts warn that even the bigger glaciers like the Aletsch, whose ice now is 800m (2,624 ft) thick in parts, could disappear within a generation.

"Every time I come back to these sites that I have monitored for many years, it's different,' said Mr Huss. "The ice is smaller, thinner, more grey. It's very sad."

But losing the glaciers is about more than losing a stunning view.

The ice, which traditionally builds up in winter and melts slowly in summer, provides fresh water vital to Europe's rivers, to irrigate Europe's crops or to cool its nuclear power stations.

Last year and again this year, shipping on the river Rhine, a key waterway for Europe's freight, had to be restricted because the water had become too shallow.

During the record heat of 2022, fish were removed from Swiss rivers and stored in tanks, because the river water itself had become too warm and too scarce for the fish to survive.

"Glaciers are very important for communicating climate change, because they are so visible," said Mr Huss.

"If there is no climate mitigation, we are going to lose all the glaciers in the alps by 2100."